There are a lot of things I could say about the Lantern Festival—about how it takes place every November, and enormous lanterns of every shape and description are erected in the suburb of Jonggak, in the center of the Cheonggyecheon, the gorgeous stream which runs through downtown Seoul. But why bother saying these things when I can just show you the pictures?
(I apologize for the low-quality, less-than-vivid and somewhat blurry images. Either I know nothing about photography or my Canon PowerShot A480 doesn't do low light. Next year I'll have a badass camera and THEN we'll get the stew sorted from the dumplings. I'll photograph the hell outta this thing.)
As far as vacations go, Vietnam wouldn't be my first choice. However safe, stable and secure it may be now, the country and its name have nasty connotations for the American psyche. Nobody thinks of anything pleasant when the word "Vietnam" is mentioned.
But I can't help it. I'm in the perfect mood to write about it. I'm listening to Led Zeppelin, for one thing. (They were formed in 1968, you know.) I just watched a show yesterday about FACs, or forward air controllers. Those crazy military pilots who flew tiny propeller airplanes over enemy territory to call in air strikes. Some of 'em worked for the Air Force, some worked for the CIA. The latter flew plain-clothed and in unmarked airplanes (generally Bird Dogs). It was the most incongruous image: a guy in a flannel shirt and jeans, the steaming jungle behind him, loading bombs and rockets onto his single-engine plane, looking like a white-collar office worker on his day off...except for the magnum revolver strapped at his hip and the M16 over his shoulder.
Anyway, let's talk about 'Nam. Some of my friends have told me that I'm missing out. The place has some of the best beaches you'll find anywhere. Surfing's great. I said, yes, I know that, I've seen Apocalypse Now. They said no, no, you don't have to worry about machine-gun fire or mortars now. I said, uh-huh, yeah, I know, I've seen Tropic Thunder. They said no, no, you're jumping to conclusions, there aren't any armed rebels or ex-military personnel or landmines or anything floating around Vietnam anymore. I said, yeah, right, I've read Paul Theroux.
That's where most of my information on modern Vietnam has come from: Paul Theroux. I'll grant you he went through there quite some time ago. But the images he painted of stark poverty, landmines still blowing up trains decades after the fact, scores of Vietnamese-speaking Caucasian toddlers (sired of servicemen and native women), communism, massive reeducation programs for the "unindoctrinated," the single-party system, restrictions on free speech and press...
...well, those leave a bad taste in my mouth.
So I don't know if I'll ever go there. I might. Just to say I've been. I mean, it'd be remiss of me to form an opinion of the place before having gone and seen it myself, right? Plus, I hear they have some pretty weird foods there, like fried scorpions, dog soup and civet coffee (where the beans are passed through the digestive tract of a civet before being roasted and brewed).
There were some Vietnamese restaurants I went to in South Korea that were pretty dang delicious. And for all the strife, Vietnam still possesses some eye-buggingly beautiful scenery, like the Thác Bản Giốc waterfall...
...and Ha Long Bay.
That's the way of it. The most war-torn, dangerous and oppressed nations always seem, somehow, to be the most naturally picturesque. It's almost like Mother Nature's trying to ease the lives of the poor wretched souls living there by giving them a heaven of geological and biological splendor to look upon as they work and slave and die.
And on the seventh day, Andy decreed a day of rest. And so he did rest, laundry, submarines, waterfalls and souvenir shops notwithstanding. Okay, yeah, I said I'd take it easy today, but everything I've done has been within a mile or so of my hotel, okay? I consider that effortless.
First on the docket: sleep in. This I did, until about 8:30, half an hour later than usual. (My body doesn't take a hint. I tried going to the bathroom, swigging some water, closing the shades, every trick I knew, but I couldn't get back to sleep.) Anyway, recognizing defeat, I got up and asked Kevin, the Hiking Inn's proprietor, where the laundry was. He told me to bring it down and pile it by the office door and his wife would do it. Trying to exude an aura of extreme gratefulness, I did so. Kevin said it'd be ready in the afternoon. That little bit of housekeeping now taken care of (how easy!), I was now left to my own devices. I figured since I didn't have time to take the submarine tour up in Seongsan the other day, I'd do it today, especially since there was another submarine company just down the road at Seogwipo Harbor. Seogwipo Submarine is its imaginative name. (The Korean word for "submarine" is jamsuham, in case you're interested.) For 45,000 won you can get a 40-minute ride around coral formations and enough gaily-hued fish to choke a whale. I strolled down to the docks, then turned around a caught a cab back to my hotel. I'd left my bank book in a pocket of my new galot jacket. Not that I don't trust Kevin, but living near Los Angeles for seven years has bred in me an innate suspiciousness. Then I strolled back down to the docks again, entered the crowded waiting room and purchased a ticket.
In ten minutes (well, it's good I had to go back for something after all; it reduced the waiting time) we were boarding a launch for the submarine station. As if riding a submarine wasn't cool enough, we didn't do nearly anything so pedestrian as actually board the submarine at the harbor. The sub was docked at Mundo Island, about a half a kilometer offshore. We had to take a twelve-ton launch out of the bay and to the floating boarding barge moored just off Mundo's sheer, rocky coast.
As we pulled up, the submarine, about thirty feet long and painted white, emerged dramatically from the depths, throwing a gout of water into the air like a breaching whale. Oohs and aahs abounded.
Within fifteen minutes, passengers from the launch had been transferred from the sub (and vice-versa; the previous run had to take the launch back to the harbor); we'd all had our obligatory, individual photo op in front of the sub (the Jiah by name); and we'd descended a ladder down the narrow hatch and taken our seats on the hardened rubber benches in the cabin.
It was wild in there, nothing but huge glass portholes running down either side of the compartment, giving crystal-clear views of the rolling green waters outside.
In another moment we were descending. For the first phase of the ride (viewing the shallow-water fish that flock throughout these waters), all of us on the starboard side had to shift down to even smaller rubberized seats, while those folks on the port side rose to take their places the benches we'd vacated. This was so everybody could see out the starboard portholes.
Then the show began. Divers from a small ship nearby (itself monitoring our progress and ready to aid in case of emergency) swam by our portholes, within touching distance, it seemed. They were surreptitiously sprinkling fish food into the water, and thereby enticing a whole gang of the promised brightly-colored fish to swim after them...right by our portholes.
The result was a veritable icthyoid rainbow, a whole parade of tiny fish flocking in droves past the portholes, wowing us passengers. As they passed, a crewman aboard the sub went up and down to each porthole and took pictures of each of us. Prints would later be made available after we'd landed back at the harbor. It was a pretty neat sight, unlike anything I'd ever seen before at sea or an aquarium.
All too soon the fishfest was over, and the Jiah descended deeper into the green, murky depths. It was a pity it was so murky. The first I saw of the shipwreck was when the rust- and barnacle-encrusted bow loomed up out of the silt like the snout of some shovel-nosed leviathan.
It was a small craft, probably some fishing boat (or perhaps just some junker sunk by the Seogwipo Submarine Company for the effect)...but still, it was an impressive and sobering moment, this rusted hulk sitting on the bottom of the sea, picked at by fish, lost and forgotten. Even if that spectacle was only one-millionth the power that the sight of the Titanic must've been to the crew of the submersible team that discovered it, it was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. I strongly recommend the ride...the shipwreck alone is worth the price of admission.
But the ride wasn't over. After sliding silently and somberly by this decaying remnant, the Jiah came to rest up against a rock formation covered in coral and seaweed. Leafy fronds and lacy growths waved gently in the current, a dramatic sight in itself, but even more so when they hit the orange lights and the whole scene was lit from below with a red-gold glow.
The sub moved itself slowly across the surface of this rock face, making love to it, so close that we could easily have reached out and grasped what we saw, had there not been thick glass in between. It was the final win of the hat trick in that short undersea journey. I really envied the submarine drivers in their job.
And so we emerged from the depths. I watched the sub break the surface with the aid of a small television monitor in the cabin, connected to a camera overlooking the top deck.
We transferred to the launch once again and disembarked at the harbor.
Our free publicity shots (taken in front of the sub as we'd boarded) were waiting for us, and for a small fee (4,000 for card size, 8,000 for 8.5" x 11" prints) we could pick up the photos taken inside the sub as well. I did this...one can never have too many mementos of a submarine ride.
It was a subtle thing. It didn't seem so amazing at the time, but then again, my mind was in a million places at once today. It's my last day and tomorrow I'm checking out, going up to Jeju City and catching the ferry for Mokpo in Jeollanam-do. After the fact, however, the thrill of the experience and the absolute beauty of the spectacle got to work on my imagination. I'll sum all of it up in one word: Wow.
There remains little to tell. I revisited Cheonjiyeon Pokpo, now far more beautiful in the light of day than it had been when I'd arrived in the overcast, as expected.
Then I picked up some gifts for my friends back in Gohyeon (again, I won't say what, in case they're reading this). I came back here, picked up my laundry, and have just been relaxing during the heat of the day (which has remained clear despite predictions to the contrary). I watched Under Siege 2: Dark Territory...one of the better Steven Seagal movies, but that's not saying much. When it cools down a little in the late afternoon I plan on going out again, seeking out a damn good dinner (maybe heukdwaeji bulgogi again) and some more gifts. Then I'll return here, pack up, grab a good night's sleep, and be raring for the road again come Monday morning. Signing off...
Having completed my contract at Reading Town, somehow weathered the storm of the final week (with a lot of sweat and a few tears), outlived the guilt of occupying Adam and Elaine's couch for the weekend (excuse me, I mean setee), and moved all my garbage out of my old apartment...I was ready to go.
Go, on two weeks of sightseeing around Korea to desperately try to catch up on everything that I missed. I'm going to try to update this every day. It should be easy the first week, 'cause the hostel where I'm staying has a computer lab, but I don't know how things will fall out later on. Bear with me.
Oh, and one more thing: I had to amend my previous plans, unsurprisingly. I've got some things I absolutely MUST take care of when I get back to Gohyeon, like a police background check and the final withdrawal of all my money from my Korean bank account. So, to that end, I have to be back in Gohyeon no later than the night of Thursday, July 9th. That cuts, like, three whole days off my roamin' and viewin' schedule, which means I had to completely excise Gangwon-do from my list of things to see. I'll still get to see Jeju and certainly Gwangju, even if I have to cut my time in Mokpo a bit short. So, all in all, I'll be happy with the holiday island and the mysterious province of Jeollanam-do. I guess I'll kip on the setee for the remainder of the time, if A and E will still have me...
Alright, down to business. I was all packed up and had pretty much settled my affairs (as far as possible) by the time the weekend rolled around. I spent a relaxed couple of days at Adam and Elaine's place (Jeff and Kevin came over a lot)...which was nice, seeing as how we're going to be parted for a while. Then I got up at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, today, checked through all my belongings one more time, made sure I had all my documentation with me, snarfed some more of A & E's food, and then headed out.
...into the pouring rain. Yep, a storm front had moved in overnight and it was bucketing down. And there's me, the stupid Samaritan, donating my spacious man-sized umbrella to my successor. In a dilemma, I finally set my things down on the threshold of Adam and Elaine's building and sprinted down to the nearest GS25 to buy a tiny, cheap replacement. It was this umbrella I cowered under as the wind drove sheets of rain all over my pants and shoes and ungainly duffel bag, while I marched down the road to the main drag to hail a cab. I finally got one and managed to make the station, but I was a little irked. Normally I don't let the weather get me down, but normally my socks and pant cuffs aren't soaking wet, either. I also slipped walking down the steep, smooth sidewalk by Meat Home (now Meat Rak) and scraped my knee something fierce; it throbbed for a long while afterwards.
Meteorological and physical setbacks aside, however, I made it to the bus station, bought my ₩9,000 ticket, boarded, and spent the next two hours in a lurching bus trying to dry off. I had to the backseat to myself, so I was fairly successful, but I could barely keep my eyes open. We'd been staying up late and partying all weekend, and having to get up at six o'clock was only compounding matters. Even pleasant daydreams about myself and Keeley Hazell alone on an inexplicably deserted Jeju Island didn't help; I nodded all the way to Masan.
There, I easily secured a cab to the airport limousine terminal. "Limousine" is a bit of a misnomer: it's actually just the airport bus. Perhaps that was an error; perhaps it's customary to label any shuttle vehicle that links up with an airport a "limousine," and I wasn't aware of it. I think some Korean didn't read the American travel brochure very well when he was looking for inspiration. Anyway, I bought a ₩6,500 ticket and within a half-hour we were rolling toward Gimhae, reaching it at about 11:00.
So, I was at the domestic terminal at the required airport after a trip that had gone incredibly smoothly compared to what I was used to...so swimmingly, in fact, that I trapped myself. Check-ins for my 2:30 flight didn't even begin for another three hours. (Insert weak laugh here.) So I just kind of lounged around the terminal, stopping off at the Sky View Restaurant upstairs for a quick meal of haemuldwenjang, a spicy, chunky seafood-and-tofu soup. With side dishes the bill came to a whopping ₩6,000 (about $5.50). Then I just plunked myself down and read my trashy adventure novel until it was finally time to go. (Oh yeah, I logged on Facebook at the airport cluster and wrote a rather vitriolic pamphlet against the intercity bus system, but I've spoken liberally about that elsewhere, too, so I won't go into detail here.) But for a slight setback that occurred when I forgot to put my Swiss Army knife in my checked baggage, and had to return to where I got my boarding pass to check it, I made it through security smoothly. I sat around in the concourse a bit more (in the tiny, tiny Gimhae domestic terminal; so much smaller than what I was used to in domestic terminals, unsurprisingly), and then boarded. My ride was a de Havilland Q400, better known as a Dash-8. I was so pumped to be riding in one...it was the first time I'd flown (commercially) in a propeller-driven aircraft! It was really neat to look out my window in seat 3D (which on this lovely cheap airline, Jeju Air, only cost me ₩34,000, or around thirty bucks) and see that massive propeller spinning around at blinding speed.
Our flight was a paltry 45 minutes, up above the snowscape of clouds, jarringly beautiful. (I realized with a shock that it's been over a year since I've flown, period.) We landed and taxied. We weren't at a terminal, so a bus had to pick us all up from the ramp and take us to the gate. That was a new one on me. We reclaimed our baggage (my black duffel bag, and my Swiss Army knife in the orange-and-white livery of Jeju Air). I waltzed out of the airport, consulted my guidebook briefly, then caught the ₩5,000 airport limousine for Seogwipo. It was a long ride, but smooth and scenic (but for the fog, clouds, and mist). I got off at the Sunbeach Hotel, per the instructions on my room reservation at the Jeju Hiking Inn, and found the place without any difficulty at all. Checking in was a snap, even though I had to hit the pause button to run out and find an ATM to get the necessary 140,000 won in cash to pay for the full seven nights of my stay. (I'd found the Jeju Hiking Inn on Hostelworld.com, at a ridiculously cheap rate of $18.00, or 20,000 won per night; I'd booked the entire week right then and there.)
That concluded, I dumped off my stuff, sallied forth into the downtown area (a steep climb up the hill away from the harbor), and just sort of cast about. I visited the covered market and bought some unhealthy snacks (meat on a stick and triangle gimbap, mmmm) at Family Mart. I then strolled down past the harbor to get a look at Cheonjiyeon Falls, a massive and beautiful waterfall hidden up a gorge a little ways down the coastline. It was gorgeous, but its effects were somewhat muted by the gathering dark and the mist and sullen skies.
I concluded, right then and there, drawing on evidence that had been accumulating ever since I exited the airport in Jeju City, that Jeju Island was only meant to be seen under the clear light of day or a starry night. It should never be cloudy here. The palm trees seem to wilt, the people's faces seem to cloud over and even the sea becomes gray and grumpy. This place needs a warm breeze and a sunny sky constantly to have any cheery effects whatsoever.
Anyway, those are my first impressions. I'm going to take another shot at the waterfall when the weather clears up; in the meantime, I familiarized myself with the location of some bars and restaurants in my guidebook which I'll also assay later. When I finish this I'm just going to pop out for some shampoo and a bottle of water, then hit the sack for the night...though the football (soccer) match is on between the U.S. and some other country in some Cup or other, so I gotta get back and see how we've done. We've beaten Spain and Italy so far...
...and Ha Long Bay.
That's the way of it. The most war-torn, dangerous and oppressed nations always seem, somehow, to be the most naturally picturesque. It's almost like Mother Nature's trying to ease the lives of the poor wretched souls living there by giving them a heaven of geological and biological splendor to look upon as they work and slave and die.
In ten minutes (well, it's good I had to go back for something after all; it reduced the waiting time) we were boarding a launch for the submarine station. As if riding a submarine wasn't cool enough, we didn't do nearly anything so pedestrian as actually board the submarine at the harbor. The sub was docked at Mundo Island, about a half a kilometer offshore. We had to take a twelve-ton launch out of the bay and to the floating boarding barge moored just off Mundo's sheer, rocky coast.
As we pulled up, the submarine, about thirty feet long and painted white, emerged dramatically from the depths, throwing a gout of water into the air like a breaching whale. Oohs and aahs abounded.
Within fifteen minutes, passengers from the launch had been transferred from the sub (and vice-versa; the previous run had to take the launch back to the harbor); we'd all had our obligatory, individual photo op in front of the sub (the Jiah by name); and we'd descended a ladder down the narrow hatch and taken our seats on the hardened rubber benches in the cabin.
It was wild in there, nothing but huge glass portholes running down either side of the compartment, giving crystal-clear views of the rolling green waters outside.
In another moment we were descending. For the first phase of the ride (viewing the shallow-water fish that flock throughout these waters), all of us on the starboard side had to shift down to even smaller rubberized seats, while those folks on the port side rose to take their places the benches we'd vacated. This was so everybody could see out the starboard portholes.
Then the show began. Divers from a small ship nearby (itself monitoring our progress and ready to aid in case of emergency) swam by our portholes, within touching distance, it seemed. They were surreptitiously sprinkling fish food into the water, and thereby enticing a whole gang of the promised brightly-colored fish to swim after them...right by our portholes.
The result was a veritable icthyoid rainbow, a whole parade of tiny fish flocking in droves past the portholes, wowing us passengers. As they passed, a crewman aboard the sub went up and down to each porthole and took pictures of each of us. Prints would later be made available after we'd landed back at the harbor. It was a pretty neat sight, unlike anything I'd ever seen before at sea or an aquarium.
All too soon the fishfest was over, and the Jiah descended deeper into the green, murky depths. It was a pity it was so murky. The first I saw of the shipwreck was when the rust- and barnacle-encrusted bow loomed up out of the silt like the snout of some shovel-nosed leviathan.
It was a small craft, probably some fishing boat (or perhaps just some junker sunk by the Seogwipo Submarine Company for the effect)...but still, it was an impressive and sobering moment, this rusted hulk sitting on the bottom of the sea, picked at by fish, lost and forgotten. Even if that spectacle was only one-millionth the power that the sight of the Titanic must've been to the crew of the submersible team that discovered it, it was one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. I strongly recommend the ride...the shipwreck alone is worth the price of admission.
But the ride wasn't over. After sliding silently and somberly by this decaying remnant, the Jiah came to rest up against a rock formation covered in coral and seaweed. Leafy fronds and lacy growths waved gently in the current, a dramatic sight in itself, but even more so when they hit the orange lights and the whole scene was lit from below with a red-gold glow.
The sub moved itself slowly across the surface of this rock face, making love to it, so close that we could easily have reached out and grasped what we saw, had there not been thick glass in between. It was the final win of the hat trick in that short undersea journey. I really envied the submarine drivers in their job.
And so we emerged from the depths. I watched the sub break the surface with the aid of a small television monitor in the cabin, connected to a camera overlooking the top deck.
We transferred to the launch once again and disembarked at the harbor.
Our free publicity shots (taken in front of the sub as we'd boarded) were waiting for us, and for a small fee (4,000 for card size, 8,000 for 8.5" x 11" prints) we could pick up the photos taken inside the sub as well. I did this...one can never have too many mementos of a submarine ride.
It was a subtle thing. It didn't seem so amazing at the time, but then again, my mind was in a million places at once today. It's my last day and tomorrow I'm checking out, going up to Jeju City and catching the ferry for Mokpo in Jeollanam-do. After the fact, however, the thrill of the experience and the absolute beauty of the spectacle got to work on my imagination. I'll sum all of it up in one word: Wow.
There remains little to tell. I revisited Cheonjiyeon Pokpo, now far more beautiful in the light of day than it had been when I'd arrived in the overcast, as expected.
Then I picked up some gifts for my friends back in Gohyeon (again, I won't say what, in case they're reading this). I came back here, picked up my laundry, and have just been relaxing during the heat of the day (which has remained clear despite predictions to the contrary). I watched Under Siege 2: Dark Territory...one of the better Steven Seagal movies, but that's not saying much. When it cools down a little in the late afternoon I plan on going out again, seeking out a damn good dinner (maybe heukdwaeji bulgogi again) and some more gifts. Then I'll return here, pack up, grab a good night's sleep, and be raring for the road again come Monday morning. Signing off...
That concluded, I dumped off my stuff, sallied forth into the downtown area (a steep climb up the hill away from the harbor), and just sort of cast about. I visited the covered market and bought some unhealthy snacks (meat on a stick and triangle gimbap, mmmm) at Family Mart. I then strolled down past the harbor to get a look at Cheonjiyeon Falls, a massive and beautiful waterfall hidden up a gorge a little ways down the coastline. It was gorgeous, but its effects were somewhat muted by the gathering dark and the mist and sullen skies.
I concluded, right then and there, drawing on evidence that had been accumulating ever since I exited the airport in Jeju City, that Jeju Island was only meant to be seen under the clear light of day or a starry night. It should never be cloudy here. The palm trees seem to wilt, the people's faces seem to cloud over and even the sea becomes gray and grumpy. This place needs a warm breeze and a sunny sky constantly to have any cheery effects whatsoever.
Anyway, those are my first impressions. I'm going to take another shot at the waterfall when the weather clears up; in the meantime, I familiarized myself with the location of some bars and restaurants in my guidebook which I'll also assay later. When I finish this I'm just going to pop out for some shampoo and a bottle of water, then hit the sack for the night...though the football (soccer) match is on between the U.S. and some other country in some Cup or other, so I gotta get back and see how we've done. We've beaten Spain and Italy so far...
